Diana inquest jury head back to UK

The 11 members of the public made legal history with their two-day visit to Paris as the first British inquest panel to have travelled outside the UK while sitting in a case.

The six women and five men retraced Diana's final steps through the corridors of the city's Ritz Hotel and stood where she and her lover Dodi Fayed shared a tender embrace minutes before the crash which would claim their lives.

On Monday they paused at the 13th pillar of the Pont de l'Alma tunnel by the River Seine, where the couple's Mercedes crashed shortly after midnight on August 31 1997. As part of an exercise to familiarise themselves with the traffic patterns and road layouts central to the evidence they will hear over the next six months, they travelled through the tunnel seven times on Monday - by coach and on foot - and once more on Tuesday.

Late on Monday night they were also driven along the river from the scene of the crash to the hospital where Diana died a few hours later. They arrived at the Ritz after 10.30am on Tuesday, after staying at an undisclosed venue, to meet coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker, lawyers, court officials and a media contingent.

The first stop was a brief visit to the Ritz's "Bar Vendome" which, the inquest has heard, the couple's driver Henri Paul visited earlier that night, ordering at least two Ricards - an aniseed spirit. They then walked along a narrow corridor the full length of the first floor, following the route taken by the Princess and Dodi as they made their way to the tradesman's exit in a doomed ruse to evade the paparazzi waiting at the front of the hotel.

Downstairs they were led through a curtain, away from the plush surroundings of the hotel into a plain corridor and a tiled hallway opening onto the back door. It was here, 10 years ago, that Diana and Dodi waited, cuddling and holding hands, for the car that was to take them to their deaths.

The court party were then driven away in their coaches to be shown three separate possible routes to Dodi Fayed's flat in the Rue Arsene Houssaye adjoining a branch of Cartier jewellers at the top of the Champs Elysees. It was here that the couple were heading after leaving the Ritz. But the question of how the car came to be in the tunnel at all is a key issue in the inquest.

While the route taken by Henri Paul along the riverbank skirts around the Champs Elysees traffic, the quickest way would have involved coming off onto a slip road just before the Alma tunnel. The jury were driven along this route before turning and repeating the journey but, rather than using the slip road, going on through the underpass and eventually turning right and doubling back.

As the bus reached the apartment for the third time, the coroner, court officials and media left the jury to continue on their way back to the UK. The inquest is due to reconvene on Wednesday at the Royal Courts of Justice where the jury is expected to hear from the first French witnesses by live video link.